


The Lightning Welcome

by fadeverb



Series: Kai and Mannie [8]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two Ofanim of Lightning visit Kai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lightning Welcome

The way to tell Gamma and Strange apart, as they'll explain to anyone who asks, is that Gamma's spiraling inner rings are formed in loops that go counter-clockwise, while Strange's turn clockwise. If the person so informed asks how one can tell which side of the Ofanite is being addressed, to determine if the rings are going the one way or another, they're not likely to get a straight answer out of either. Presumably their Archangel can tell them apart, and that is, of course, all that matters.

Nonetheless, Gamma is the one who's brought a certain subject to her sister's attention. (To assign a gender to a spinning wheel of fire is a tricky prospect at best, but their vessels are female, and they choose to consider themselves such, if as lightly as they consider any other decoration they wear.) They've been racing up and down through the Halls of Progress for some uncertain amount of time, neither being in the habit of looking at clocks, and the discussion of certain uncertain principles (or was it principles of uncertainty?) has lost its charm.

(They don't speak about Charm. Every family has its black sheep.)

"I saw her in the lounge," Gamma says. To apply a gendered pronoun to another Ofanite is presumptuous, but the twins have their quirks that few bother to call them on anymore, and they did see the other in a female vessel. "Making coffee. Did you know the coffee makers in the lounge aren't fail-safe?"

"What did she do?" Strange rolls along idly beside her sister, though their "idle" zooms past others walking through the halls. 

"If you add just enough water to deactivate the sensor, add four times as much grounds as needed, leave it at a slight angle on top of a couch, and then jiggle the power cord several times, you can fry the temperature control circuits."

"Clever."

"Not especially. It was an accident."

They linger in an intersection of corridors, chasing each other in a tight circle that avoids hitting anyone else without ever slowing. Heaven is accommodating. "She seems a simple type. Very straightforward." Strange sends her inner rings rippling in a direction opposite to her roll. "I expect she'll be returning downstairs soon."

"So I'm told. Soon. She has a job to do."

"But not an office."

"No, not an office."

"Shame, that. Sparkies should have offices. A place to set their computers and coffee cups."

"I don't think she considers herself a Sparky."

They spin down another corridor side by side, so closely matched that many of the people who see them take the sisters for a single Ofanite barreling along.

"She didn't get much of a proper welcome. We ought to do something about that."

"We should."

The Ofanim whirl through various lounges, break rooms, common areas. "She appreciated the car," says Strange. "I'd even let her drive, if I was busy with other things."

"Her ring may be simple, but it's a nice simple. Keeps moving. Pointy flames." Gamma contracts herself, slips through the spaces in Strange to roll along on the other side. "I like Creationers. They throw good parties. They're entertaining. They cook well."

"Not this one."

"No, not so much for the cooking. Or at least not the coffee." Gamma pauses for a fraction of a second, an Ofanite's thoughtful deliberation. "I think she's cute."

"Should we?"  
 "If she'd like."

"Not that she doesn't have friends here."

"But would those two know how to greet her?"

"Of course not. Too slow-and-steady." And the two of them think, though they wouldn't say it out loud in public, _Too boring._

Ofanim are of divided opinion on elevators. Some prefer the speed; others dislike sitting still in a confined space while something else does the moving, under no control beyond the pressing of a button.

This is the way you can tell Gamma and Strange apart: Gamma takes the stairs, and Strange takes the elevator.

When someone perfects instantaneous matter transportation, they'll both be happy.

Gamma's the one who spots their target, through a half-open door on the right, and they rush into the room to spin around her. "So there you are!"

"We'd been looking for you."

"For minutes."

Kai rotates amiably in their direction. Allows herself to be surrounded by their orbits. "Anything I can help you with?"

"You don't have an office," Strange says. "More's the pity. But we can adapt. Want to come see ours?"

The sisters have a big office, a sphere with a curved door and curved window. They've attached all the useful items to the walls, computers and coffee cups and chairs for visitors, and in the center there's space to move. More than enough room for three burning wheels to shift around each other without running into anything they don't wish to run into. They have a machine to brew coffee properly into a thick syrup that takes hot milk, a window that can provide a one-way view to the blue skies outside, and a tiny monorail train that runs a convoluted route all around the room.

Kai whirls above the train to follow its path, and they approve.

Strange sets herself spinning in the center of the room, while Gamma orbits around her, and they watch every part of the room at once. Ofanim have no need for such details as eyes.

"It's good to have you here," Strange says.

"There are plenty of other Creationers working for the Boss these days. You'll fit right in."

"The Boss will assign you to the projects that fit you best."

"He's efficient that way."

"Until then, you ought to get to know the place. And the people."

"Like us."

With some Choirs, or Words, this would be a time for certain formalities, or at least careful testing of the waters. But none of these three are dreadfully concerned with formality, nor ones for patience.

Gamma is an ever-spiraling ring, one line drawn around in coils down to her axis, and if the outer end of that line is a theoretical thing, she deals well in theories. She slides this theoretical end around the rim of Kai's entirely factual single circle, and spins down until that neat circle passes through her center. "If you don't mind," Gamma says, and her flames are a politely low crackle, even as she tugs the other Ofanite towards the center of the room.

"It's only that we thought you could use some company," says Strange, and she repeats her sister's movement from the other side, until the two of them are drawing a perfect diameter line across the space inside Kai's ring. Their flames brush delicately against each other in the center as they spin on either point around the not-quite-Sparky. 

"We know you have people to turn to for company," says Gamma, and her flames flicker hotter, her spin gears up to not quite synchronize with her sister's. "More company is better. Especially when they're busy."

"Besides," says Strange, and she abruptly reverses spin, easy glide against her sister's edges changing to an opposed grind that sends off crackling showers of hot white sparks, "you appreciate motion. As do we."

"So practical," says Kai, and she glides easily through each of their centers in an endless ring, "but I'm not arguing. I like this. I like you." And she slips, twists, perfect round loop bending into a fluctuating ribbon of fire, spins herself out narrower and longer into an oval, nearly a line, a braided line, pulling Gamma and Strange closer towards each other. Into each other.

For a single moment, there's no longer three wheels of fire, but a single wheel whirling in three directions at once along an axis that spins so fast it's nothing but a blur of fire in motion. Blue-tipped flames run along every surface, turning red-orange to a single blue-white glow, one perfect machine, as Forces slide so close together there's not three but one--

And then the ribbon snaps back out into a ring, and two coiled wheels spin slowly around either edge of a solitary circle.

It is not in the nature of Ofanim to linger on any one task, least of all in groups.

"We can show you a few projects," says Strange.

"You'll probably like them," says Gamma, and she unwinds at a leisurely pace from around Kai, which is to say, not with blinding speed.

"I won't understand them," Kai says, "but I'd like to see."

Three Wheels race down the corridors of the Halls of Progress, dodging anyone in their way.

(And Gamma allows herself to think, briefly, of Charm.)

There are projects to see, and places to go.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to god, I still don't know how I'm supposed to rate explicit celestial sex with non-humanoid characters.


End file.
